Do Purpose – a shot of inspiration for CEOs

Do Purpose was the first book published by our portfolio company Unbound under it’s ‘channels’ initiative. Unbound is a crowdfunding platform for authors and has now published several notable books working directly with authors, including best seller Letters of Note and The Wake which was shortlisted for the Man-Booker prize. The channels initiative is a way for traditional publishers to work with Unbound to crowdfund the books that they then publish. That’s exciting because it opens up crowdfunding as an option for many more authors than Unbound can work with on it’s own.

I finally got round to reading Do Purpose last weekend. It was like a shot of caffeine in the arm. Short, to the point, and highly inspirational. The book is structured as a series of vignettes with titles like “Speed matters”, “Patience matters”, “Your people are your brand”, “Teams gather around change” and “Sleep is the multiplier of energy” that made me think and reflect on my life, Forward Partners, and some of our portfolio companies. There wasn’t much that I hadn’t heard before, but reading this book helped me reconnect with what’s important and gave me new resolve and energy.

Lots of entrepreneurs I talk with don’t business books because they take too much time. Not this one. I got through it in under an hour.